nae 🚬

its the theory that Mr. Manfredo was possessed by Mr. Martin or some stupid shit like that and thats why he "suddenly decided to kill Rhonda even though he seemed like a nice guy".

like how the fuck do you even come to that conclusion. we are truly in a literacy crisis. like media literacy is actually dead because yall need to pay waaaay more attention. if yall would keep ur damn eyes on the tv screen and not on ur phone the whole time, you would actually catch the important details.

"why else would he just randomly snap and then start attacking her after all these nice things he did for her?" Did you watch school spirits season 1 with your eyes closed and your ears plugged? He didnt just do it randomly, he had this shit planned. He was literally grooming that fuckin kid man. He tried to make her feel special, like she was his "best student" that could rely on him for everything, so that she wouldnt wanna leave him.

Little psychology tangent, but a lot of p3dophiles and groomers will purposely spoil their victim with everything they could ever want, to make sure they won't wanna leave. (Not entirely related, but child m0lesters also pamper and spoil their victim when they are actively assaulting them, because the kid knows if they tell, they won't get those things anymore, therefore they choose not to say anything.)

Moving forward, he knew that treating her like shes special when nobody else has ever treated her like this, (with the knowledge that her parents were kinda careless and negligent) she would trust him more than anyone else. Therefore, he could try to get her to stay with him since she had nobody else except for Marjorie. He played her like a fucking game. It was an elaborate plan, and we still see things like this happen today. Predators prey on the kids with parents that dont really any spend time with them, because they're in the most vulnerable and desperate state. When you aren't being fed love on a silver spoon, you learn to lick it off of knives.

Getting to the actual point now, the whole point of him randomly snapping and then strangling her was him realizing he wasn't gonna get what he wanted. And we all know exactly what he wanted. His fucked up brain believed that she should "repay" him for what he did for her all those years. But she didnt want to do that, so he ended her life. My interpretation of that was that he didn't want her to go out into the world and be successful because she would be leaving him, and becoming independent, and he wanted her completely dependent on him. So once he realized that she was really gonna leave, he decided to take her life so she really couldn't go out and be independent.

I think this whole thing was represented really well, and it really hits home for people who have been groomed and/or abused by an authority figure until they were completely dependent on him. As a victim of this, I feel so seen and represented, and you can really see how the trauma affects her, even after 60 years in the afterlife. But it literally drives me up the wall when people try to diminish her story by turning it into a "ohh her killer was just possessed and he didn't mean it 🥺" like what the fuck seriously.

Rhonda's story is for all the people who have been used by an authority figure that was supposed to take care of them. Its really a helpless feeling especially when people dont take it seriously or make up excuses for the person that did it to you. (It sucks even more that her classmates said she was asking for it. she was only a baby, she just wanted to go to Berkeley.)

Thankfully I havent seen this theory go around in a few years, because i have had full blown arguments with people on Reddit over this, and they were not fucking getting it. "Its just a theory, it doesnt mean we're dismissing her experience!" then what the fuck does it mean?? the theory doesnt even make any sense and it wouldn't even contribute to the plot. its so nothingburger

anygays thanks for coming to my ted talk. this got really deep and really dark but it needed to be said 🥶